


Pi The Purple Octopus

by nerdqueenenterprise



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: It's fluffy I guess, M/M, autistic!Paul Stamets, sorry i have legitimately no idea what to tag this as, trans!Paul Stamets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 15:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdqueenenterprise/pseuds/nerdqueenenterprise
Summary: Paul has a stuffed animal. This is their story.





	Pi The Purple Octopus

**Author's Note:**

> idk where this story came from, but here it is :D

Once upon a time there was a huge purple stuffed teddy bear. It was so huge, in fact, that it took four generations to wear down so much the then-owner had to decide to relieve it of its duty, especially seeing how her son had never wanted it. But also this particular shade of purple is almost like a thread she could follow through over a hundred years of family memories, and seeing how she was a grandma-to-be, she decided that the little one would need a stuffed animal to cuddle.

So she salvaged as much of the original fabric as she could, grabbed needle and thread and stuffing and set to work.

The result was a rather small purple octopus with embroidered eyes and a small purple heart with the teddy bear’s original stuffing inside. 

The craftswoman was rather worried her octopus would be too small, but once the child was born it turned out that it, too, was absolutely tiny (so tiny, in fact, that the doctors were a little worried), and the bright purple made a very nice contrast to the pale baby.

Eventually, the baby learned its first words, and ’octopus’ was one of them. Being young, pronunciation wasn’t the baby’s strong suit, so the purple octopus was called ’Pus’; and seeing how this, like many young children, couldn’t yet pronounce the s, the octopus was called ’Pu’ instead, and it was loved very very much.

A few years later, Pu’s person, now already walking and talking and doing all manner of things children do, including trying to stick anything into their little mouths with extremely dirty fingers, decided that ’Pu’ sounds too much like poo, and poo is not yummy at all, so the purple octopus got called ’Pi’ instead.

Pi went on to have a very adventurous life, being interred not once or twice but a full four times, usually followed by Pi’s person being scolded by their mother, because the cleaning required for Pi’s fur meant Pi would need to go on a trip spanning several weeks to someone who could provide such services, and during that time Pi’s person was usually inconsolable.

Pi also had the tips of his tentacles suckled on, seeing how Pi’s person consequently refused any other pacifiers; Pi was taken to showering and bath time and once almost ended up in the oven with a tray of cookies; Pi was flung at walls and toy castles and bookshelves in fits of childish fury, then later used to dry its person’s tears.

Once Pi’s person went to school, it had some downtime until Pi’s person’s mother got very sick, which was when Pi’s services as a support stuffy were needed again.

And later, Pi supported its person through crushes and breakups and bullying and bad grades and good grades and scary movies and choosing colleges and living at college and making friends and gender-realizations and transitioning and all the other things that come with being a young adult.

Even later, Pi semi-permanently moved into laboratories with its human; it supported the human through countless funding talks and late-night researching and sometimes it was the only texture that didn’t freak its human out.

And way, way later, Pi was introduced to a human that would end up being very special to its human.

 

 

 

“Is that a stuffed octopus?” Hugh asks, grinning widely. 

Paul flushes. “Yes. Their name is Pi.”

“Can I -” Hugh moves towards the stuffy, hand stretching out.

“No!” Paul blurts out, face immediately heating up even more. “Sorry, I…” He trails off, staring at his own feet. “I don’t like other people touching them. It’s - they’re my, you know.”

“Your comfort object.”

“Yeah.”

Hugh takes Paul’s hand and makes him sit down on the edge of the bed where Paul immediately takes Pi into his lap, fingers smoothing over the tentacles with years of practise to the movements.

“Tell me about them.”

“My grandma made them for me, from this huge purple stuffed teddy bear that was from her great-grandma’s mother. It’d worn down so much that she didn’t think it would survive another generation - me - but she couldn’t just throw it out. So she made Pi from the fabric, and inside Pi’s head is a heart from the same fabric with the stuffing from the old bear, and Pi was the first thing I held in my hands after I was born, apparently. Actually, there’s a picture somewhere that I’ll show you when I find it. Pi was the size of my head, and I’d scream non-stop if you took it away from me. I still kind of do. As you’ve just noticed, probably. Um. I don’t know. Pi’s always been my comfort object, really, and no matter what, their texture is always the best texture.”

“You still sleep with them?”

“Yeah.” Paul looks up with a faint smile, and to his relief Hugh is smiling too. A happy smile, not a ’that’s so weird and hilarious and embarrassing’ smile like Paul’s seen before.

“And nobody else was ever allowed to touch them?”

Paul laughs to himself, recalling some of the stories his grandma told him. “No. Never. I’d start screaming and crying and when I was really small I’d have proper temper tantrums. Pi came with me to primary school, too, for the first three years.”

“That’s adorable,” Hugh says softly, earnestly.

 

 

 

It’s about four months later when Hugh gets to hold Pi for the first time. He’s seeing Paul for just a weekend, but the minute his shuttle landed he got the news that his sister was having major complications while giving birth, so Paul cancelled their date and now Hugh is walking a hole into the floor of Paul’s apartment. 

Paul is fidgeting too, because this is obviously not something that can be changed with a direct action from Paul, so he doesn’t know what to do. Hugh doesn’t blame him - that stuff is hard enough for someone like him, who’s very compassionate, while Paul is more of a sympathetic kind of guy.

Two hours into Hugh pacing and checking his comm over and over, and Paul suddenly jumps up from where he’d been sitting, pats Hugh’s arm, mutters something incomprehensible, and flees the room. Hugh is too anxious to think too much about it, so he resumes his pacing.

“Hey,” Paul says after coming back, fixing his fingers around Hugh’s elbow, forcing him to stop moving. “Come on, sit down. I’m, uh, I thought I’d make tea, and,” He draws a big breath. “Here,” he says, pushing Pi into Hugh’s hands. “I don’t know, but maybe Pi will help a little. Just… run your fingers over the top of their tentacles, just like this.” He moves Hugh’s fingers around to show him.

Hugh ends up holding Pi for three more hours, and his sister and her baby end up being okay, and then Pi gets to resume their spot between Paul’s pillows.

 

 

 

A few months later, they’ve managed to go on a short vacation together, and of course Pi is along for the ride, although Paul ends up carefully settling them on the headboard and then holding Hugh instead, which may or may not make Hugh’s heart beat a little faster.

It’s when Paul is getting some take out and Hugh is tidying up their bed to be more comfortable when they eat there (come on. They’re on holiday together! Of course they’re going to eat in bed, they’re both adults after all!), when he accidentally knocks Pi off their perch. His first impulse is to just pick them up, like he would with anything that fell down, but… they’re Paul’s Pi, and Paul had asked Hugh not to touch them.

Paul comes back right that moment and makes a bee line for the bedroom.

“Hugh? What’s wrong?”

“Uh.” Hugh gestures to Pi, lying on the floor. “Pi fell down, and I didn’t know - you asked me not to touch them, so…”

Paul deposits the bags of food on the nightstand and snatches Pi up, throwing them at Hugh who catches them simply out of instinct. “Of course you’re allowed to touch them.”

“They’re your comfort object,” Hugh says softly. “It’s okay.”

“Well, and you’re my comfort Hugh. You ought to be besties.” Paul wraps his arms around Hugh, squishing Pi between them. “I love you.”

 

 

 

 

Later in their life, Pi moves onto the Federation Starship _Discovery_ and after their human and his boyfriend have finally gotten used to sleeping in the same bed, Pi takes a more permanent seat on the headboard, at least on those nights that both Hugh and Paul are on the same sleeping schedule.

 

 

 

Even later, Pi follows another child through growing up and later attending medical school and even later their new place becomes a paediatrician’s office. And the generation after that sees Pi in space again, eventually, as a ship captain’s buddy.

**Author's Note:**

> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


End file.
